Issues management in science and technology: contestable matters of fact, value and policy, and areas for future research

Issues management can be a useful conceptual tool for analyzing how science and technology issues unfold in the public sphere and for providing management guidance for organizations and interests seeking to manage science and technology issues. Using the cases of climate change as a contestable matter of fact, stem cell research as a contestable matter of value, and genetic genealogy as a contestable matter of policy, our goal in this chapter is to demonstrate how issues management and communication strategies have been used by political actors and interests to influence public opinion and policy related to science and technology, and to illustrate how issues management as an area of academic inquiry and professional practice may be examined and used as part of or in complement to political marketing research and practice. The chapter concludes with areas for future research.